Poly brush

[Bill]

Just tried ordering a 6" poly brush and rods to clean the chimney and low and behold look what the web site says.

Plastic bristles to be used only in cold chimneys or stove pipes for gentle removal of soot.
Polypropylene bristles with a durable galvanized wire stem with 1/4” male pipe threads.
Avaliable in round. Not to be used to remove creosote build-up or for high temperature use!

"casey brush.com"

I have read that you shouldn't use a metal brush on SS pipe, now I am confused again.

 

[titan]

"Casey Brush" is being rather conservative with that statement.I've done numerous cleanings with a 6" poly brush-cold chimneys,warm chimneys-no problems, nice clean flue too.btw-you're right about not using a wire brush on s.s. pipe;unless you like rust.

 

[Corie]

Eh, the steel brush on stainless steel liner thing is more of an myth IMO.


Shane will chime in, but he's done years and years of cleanings on SS liners with a steel brush and hasn't had a single problem. But if it makes you feel better, the poly will work fine too.

 

[treeman08]

I don't see anything wrong with the statement. They are just covering the Idiots out there.
It will not clean off creosote glaze build-up. If you try using it at high temperatures, when fire burning, it will melt and burn.
In our world today, things that are just common sense, have to be spelled out or someone will hurt themselves and sue the company for not warning them.

 

[berlin]

"Eh, the steel brush on stainless steel liner thing is more of an myth"

well, the chances that it will cause real-world catastrophic corrosion probably are slim, however, in principal it can and to some extent, likely a small one, will. pitting and abcesses can occur on stainless easier than many think, however, often times these are smaller than pinholes in an otherwise perfectly sound looking sheet of steel. using a 316ti liner will reduce this risk futher.

 

[Bill]

This is SS pipe not a SS liner, so should I order a poly brush or use the wire one I have? Just concerned that the poly brush will not do a good job, but I don't want to screw up my chimney.

 

[Gunner]

The installation and maintence instruction for my excel chimney say to use "a proper fitting nylon or steel brush"

I guess it don't matter ?

Unless you have some nasty glazed creo, the poly should do the trick.

 

[BrotherBart]

When this was kicked around a year or so ago somebody in the biz told Craig that the problem was with steel brushes in flex liners. He said that the tiny pieces of the ends of the bristles that break off, and they do, collect in the corregations of the flex liners and corrosion sets up between the SS and the regular steel.

 

[hookspacken]

I am by no means an expert in any of this, but I fought wit hthis decision myself for a few months. Do I buy a stainless brush, do I buy a poly brush. I went with the poly brush based on the metal on metal of the stainless brush wit hthe stainless chimney could over time be an issue. Maybe it wont, i dont know, but I have used the poly brush twice and feel it does a decent job. You would have to have something REALLY stuck to the wall of the chimney for it not to get knocked off by the poly brush, in my opinion. My only observation wit hthe poly brush over the stainless one was that the stainless seemed to have more bristles to it.

 

[DavidV]

I bought a 9 inch poly brush and ended up cutting the thing down to about 5-6 inches. it worked fine.

 

[Hogwildz]

The Imperial steel brush Corie so kindly got to me says right on the box: Can be used in clay or S.S. liners.

 

[velvetfoot]

I have to say that the poly brush I used was harder to push up the hardly used liner last year than the steel brush I used at my old place. I might go back to steel.

 

[Highbeam]

The Imperial steel brush Corie so kindly got to me says right on the box: Can be used in clay or S.S. liners.

I will be buying a new brush and cleaning my half-season used SS liner this spring and I had no idea it mattered poly vs. steel. I would worry about the above quote, I mean, you "can" use a chain hooked to a weedwacker in a clay or SS liner but bad things might happen. The brush will survive I'm sure.